The Guardian (37 page)

I felt a great embarrassment then, for the two of them hauled the sheets off me and, all uncaring of my nudity, set to stripping off the bandages and examining what lay beneath. I saw stitched scars across my chest and ribs, an ugly wound along my right side. I remembered the ferocity of the attack and marveled at Shara’s skill. And then forgot it as the room filled with such smells as made my mouth
water, for suddenly the table was layered with appetizing food.

There was fresh-baked bread, and honey cakes; fruits and cheeses, thin slices of roasted chicken; steaming, sweet-scented tea. I thought the shadows laughed, and that I caught the far-off sound of joyous music. I asked if I might eat, and Shara nodded grave agreement.

I consumed it all; I found myself ravenous.

“You’re weak still,” Shara warned. “You must build up your strength before we leave.”

“Leave?” I mumbled through a mouthful of chicken. “Where are we going?”

“Home!” Ellyn cried. “We’re going to find the Dur and raise the clans!”

I choked so hard that Shara must pat me on the back—which involved an arm around me and her body settled close to mine, which I found most pleasurable, and therefore took longer to recover than I truly needed—and said, “You’ve news?”

“No.” Shara shook her head. “But Nestor will know of Ellyn’s whereabouts now, and take measures.”

I had hoped for better news—that the clans rose in support of Ellyn, or that Talan had died of the pox, that Chaldor rebelled and threw out the Danant invaders. I said, “Eryk might have something to say about that.”

Ellyn went on beaming, but Shara nodded. “Likely we’ll have to face him. But we’ve no other choice, save to wait for Nestor to find us.”

I felt a chill run down my
spine.
“When do we go?” I knew I could not face more of the Vachyn’s abominations yet and hoped I never need to again.

Shara looked at me and smiled fondly. “When you’re ready. Not before.”

“I’m ready now,” I said. “I can heal on horseback.”

“You could die on horseback.” She pushed me back against the pillows and for all I felt recovered, I could not resist
her gentle strength. “And I’ll not have that. I—
we
—need you alive.”

I looked into her eyes. They gave me no answers, but I knew then that I loved her. I said, “Then heal me and let’s be gone.”

“It shall take awhile,” she answered. “Are you to be Ellyn’s general, you must be strong.”

“But when you are,” Ellyn announced, coming to join Shara on the bed, “we shall go to find the Dur, and …”

Shara silenced her with a raised hand. I saw then that some further understanding had passed between them as I lay fevered. Ellyn deferred to Shara, as if the child had aged and learned her lessons, and now recognized when she must listen and not speak out.

“We’ve no other choice,” Shara said. “Sooner or later, Nestor will find us, so we must quit the castle. The Dur are our best hope. Has Eryk not conquered them, they’ll shelter us. Perhaps Mattich—does he live still—will ally with us.”

Almost, I laughed at that. The Dur in alliance with us three fugitives? But it was as she said: our only hope. So I said, “I’ve claim on the Devyn, no matter my banishment. Can I defeat Eryk in combat, I could win the clan to our cause.”

“You’re not yet well enough to fight,” Ellyn declared.

“But I shall be,” I said. “Thanks to you two. I owe you both a life now.”

Ellyn smiled; Shara frowned and said, “I did what I must.”

But when I asked her, “No more than that?” she turned her face away, and I thought I saw her blush.

I
lay swaddled and tended like a babe for some longer time. I no longer saw the shadows fleshed, but still they danced attendance on me in their insubstantial forms, and I believe their phantasmagorical attentions healed me swifter. In time I was able to rise and walk the confines of my chamber, then
essay the descent to the lower floors. At first, Ellyn or Shara must accompany me, ready with a shoulder or an arm, to support me as I stumbled, but then I was able to walk unaided, and went out to pace the yard and exercise as best I could with such stitchings in me as threatened to tear apart whenever I grew too vigorous.

I chafed at the delay. I feared that Nestor should find us, or Talan send an army, and wondered all the while what transpired in Chaldor. I organized great plans inside my head: we’d find the Dur and persaude Mattich to support us; I’d face Eryk in honest combat and slay him, claiming the Devyn for my own. And then all the clans would ally with us and we’d ride down into Chaldor like the olden days, when the land dreaded the clan raids. Save now we’d ride only against Talan, who would die for what he’d done to Andur and Ryadne—him and his Vachyn, both.

But first—as Shara insisted—I must heal and regain my strength.

I do not know whether it was her ministrations or the magic of this strange valley, but I healed faster than any man had right to do. Within weeks I began to practice with my sword, then took up my buckler, and began to ride again. I still felt pain, and I knew that I could not face real combat yet, but I also knew that we could not linger here. What season it was outside, I did not know, but I sensed a building storm as surely as if I saw clouds gathering over the Highlands, and knew that we must go out or be destroyed. Ellyn spent time with me, honing her battle skills, but more with Shara in what I supposed was the further honing of her magical abilities. I supposed those lessons were shielded by the valley’s innate magic, but neither spoke to me of that, and I did not ask what they did, for while I no longer felt that mistrust of magic, it still held no appeal for me. I’d sooner trust my own strength and my blade, and leave the working of magic to those who understood it better.

My old gear was ruined now, but I found armor in the castle’s
halls that fit me well, and kitted myself with a surcoat and breastplate, greaves and vambraces, a half helm. I kept my shield and buckler—they’d served me well, and I trusted them, even did the buckler carry the marks of the hunters’ attack.

And then one sunny day, Shara declared me fit enough to ride, and announced that we should leave on the morrow.

Ellyn whooped with joy, and we went to the armory to kit her out. She looked, when she was done, like some warrior maiden, and swung her sword in great expectant arcs. I thought that she’d not need a blade, given she could summon lightning from the sky, but she insisted that were we to ride to battle, she’d fight beside anyone who’d follow her. I respected her for that, then wondered why Shara did not choose some battle kit. After all, even a sorcerer could be slain by honest steel, or an arrow.

I got my answer the day we left the castle. We ate our breakfast and retired to our chambers to kit ourselves. I found Ellyn eager in the hall, armored, with a bow and quiver slung across her back. I, too, was dressed for battle. And then Shara appeared. She was dressed in dull blue armor—breastplate, greaves, and vambraces, a light helmet covering her bound-up hair; she wore a sword and had a buckler slung across her back. I gasped, for did Ellyn seem like some warrior princess, then Shara appeared to me an empress ready to defend her cause.

“So,” she said, “do we go?”

Without waiting on an answer, she strode past us, and we went out into the castle yard, where our horses were waiting, saddled and provisioned, with shadows dancing around them and us.

“This shall not be easy,” Shara said. I wondered if she directed her words at me or Ellyn; likely both. Surely there was a great sadness in her eyes. “This shall not be any story out of legend, where the princess rides out to shouts of joy and all her enemies fall at her feet. This shall be bloody and long, and there will be little joy in it.”

“This shall be war,” I said. “And I know somewhat of that.”

Shara nodded solemnly. Ellyn smiled, her eyes alight with anticipation. And, unbidden, the portcullis lifted, the drawbridge lowered, and we rode out.

S
hara’s valley remained locked in its seemingly eternal summertime; the Barrens seemed winterbound. We came down from the walls of the Styge toward that grey and dismal land with a chilly wind blowing around us, cold enough our breath steamed and the horses huffed their displeasure. When we camped the first night, still on the mountains’ flank, the wind set our fire to streaming sparks, and I saw frost on the grass. When I saw the Barrens at close quarters, they were overhung with dark clouds, penumbras building into great thunderheads that sent brilliant shafts of light dancing over the oppressive landscape. There was neither sun nor moon there—only shadow and the threat of lightning—and my spirit dropped at the thought of traversing that horrid place again.

And it was worse when we came out from the foothills and headed south. The land was even more spare than I remembered, as if the Barrens welcomed the bleakness of winter and clung to that season. The earth was grey and frozen hard; streams lay iced, so that they seemed like transparent veins in the body of the world, all dull and turgid, carrying no life. What trees there were were stunted and twisted and entirely empty of leaves, and bushes rattled thorny fingers as we passed. I had grown accustomed to the birds’ singing in Shara’s valley, but here there were no birds, nor any song save the keening of the wind, which was a dirge.

At least we were not attacked, though several times I saw tracks in the frozen ground and wondered what insensate strength it must take to drive claws into such hard soil. Those nights we built our fire high and took turns on guard, armored and listening for the warning our mounts might
give. Once, I saw the ravaged body of some vastly tusked beast that had been pulled down and eaten—the ground was trampled in the struggle, but all that remained of the animal was scattered bones—but we were not attacked. We nervously crossed that dread ravine which, this time, did not flood, though I saw fresh bones there, tumbled and distorted, and in time we found the plateau’s edge weary and hungry, but unharmed.

Below us, then, lay the Highlands, and there it was the beginning of summer. Blue skies stood drifted with streamers of windblown cloud like the tails of racing horses, and the heather blossomed all purple and blue, interspersed with stands of yellow gorse. I saw the spartan dots of hawks, and caught the sweet scent of my homeland on the breeze. But I could not see the Dur.

“They’ll find us,” Shara said, “or not. We can only go on.”

“And if they don’t?” Ellyn asked.

“Then still we must go on,” Shara returned her. “We’ve no other course now.”

We took our horses down the slope and made camp. The gods knew, but I was happy to be out of the Barrens, with a warm wind on my face and some country I understood better around me. I even managed to snare a couple of fat rabbits for our dinner.

And in the morning the Dur found us.

Ellyn was on guard, and I woke to the clatter of her sword on her buckler. I roused from my tent and went out in only my breeches and unlaced shirt, though I carried my sword and shield.

“Riders!” Ellyn pointed north as Shara came to join us. “Three of them.”

I peered into the early morning light and saw the clan colors the men wore. “Dur,” I said.

We sheathed our blades, but we could not then know if these Dur riders were loyal to Mattich, or minions of Eryk. Not until they came closer.

They halted a little way off. They wore their bucklers ready, and two held swords; the third a nocked bow. Their faces were hard and tired, and one bore a recent scar across his cheek. They studied us awhile, as if not sure of what they had found, then one ducked his head and eased his shaggy mount a little way forward. He carried his blade across his saddle, and I saw that he was ready to swing; I was also aware of the arrow pointed at my chest. I smiled, thinking that they did not know I was the least threat, that either Ellyn or Shara could strike them down with a gesture.

“I am Rob of the Dur,” he said. “Who are you?”

“Gailard of the Devyn,” I answered. “This is Ellyn, Queen of Chaldor, and Shara.”

I did not know how else to describe her, but it mattered not to Rob, who threw back his head and laughed and shouted, “We’ve found them! Clayre was right.”

He sheathed his sword and looked at me, awaiting permission to dismount. I said, “Do you join us? We’ve not much food left, but there’s tea you’re welcome to.”

Rob dropped gratefully from his horse, followed by the others. “Tea is welcome,” he said. “We’ve been hunting you awhile now. Indeed, the gods know, there are Dur out seeking you everywhere. We’d thought you dead in the Barrens, or …” He shrugged, glancing from my face to those of the women. “It’s been so long.”

“A season or two?” I posed the question warily, sensing that more time had passed.

“Three years, Gailard.” Rob stared at me as if I were crazed. “It’s been three years since you left us.”

It was as simple an explanation as magic can ever provide, which is to say little explanation at all. The Dur wise-women, just as Shara had predicted, had dreamed of our arrival and sent men to meet us. Rob and his companions—Shawn and Maerk—were the lucky ones. Or not, if what I believed must come of this should happen.

But they had food they shared, so that we ate a fine
breakfast as they told us that Eryk had pledged his loyalty to Talan in return for Ellyn and me, and pursued the Dur since we left the clan.

“So we skulked,” Rob said, clearly not liking the embarrassment of such an admission, “until Clayre dreamed of your return, and Mattich sent men to find you. And then … Ach, no! Let Mattich tell you the story. Come, and I’ll take you to him. The gods know, but he’s been waiting long enough.”

We struck our tents and saddled our horses and went off to find Mattich. I was somewhat confused, for I no longer owned much idea of just how long we had sojourned in Shara’s secret valley. It seemed to me not long enough that so much time had passed—but then she
had
told me time was different in the Barrens and the Styge, and I trusted her.

So we mounted and went to find the Dur.

T
hey were camped in a pretty little combe, its walls dotted with blue pines, a narrow stream at its center, and lush grass all around. It was a small site, and I thought there were fewer tents than I’d seen before, and whilst we were greeted well enough, still I thought there some who looked at us askance.